Jeffrey D. Barrar P.S. | Vancouver Defenders

Jeffrey D. Barrar P.S. | Vancouver Defenders

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Criminal Law

Jeffrey D. Barrar P.S. has grown to become the largest criminal defense firm in Southwest Washington. The firm has public contracts to represent indigent defendants in felony and misdemeanor cases and also represents privately retained clients.

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Attorney Zeed Meyer won a quick decision in a DUI trial earlier this month. Jurors deliberated only 20 minutes before returning a “not guilty” verdict.

Meyer’s client was stopped for speeding on state Highway 14. A Washington State trooper clocked him driving 73 mph, 13 miles over the limit. It was about 10 p.m. The trooper said he detected the odor of alcohol on the driver’s breath, and said the driver acknowledged having a few glasses of wine earlier in the day.

The driver couldn’t keep his balance during field sobriety tests and his pupils were pinpricks, both signs of intoxication, the trooper noted in his report. The driver agreed to a breath test, the results of which showed he had alcohol in his system but the amount was below the legal limit.

The trooper decided the driver was under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

The driver, a cancer survivor, told the trooper he takes multiple prescription medications.

The trooper conducted drug recognition tests and concluded the driver was under the influence of a drug that acts as a depressant on the central nervous system.

The driver agreed to a blood test, which came back negative for drugs.

Attorney Grant Cole won an acquittal this week for a client charged with criminal trespass in the first degree and malicious mischief in the third degree.

A six-member jury deliberated 30 minutes before unanimously voting “not guilty” on both charges. The daylong trial on June 28 in Clark County District Court came three months after a judge ruled the lead police officer would not be allowed to testify due to prosecutorial misconduct by an assistant Vancouver city attorney.

The trial had previously been scheduled for March 2. Two nights before trial, the police officer, under the direction of the prosecutor, called Cole’s client and questioned her without Cole’s knowledge.

In a subsequent hearing Cole argued the case should be dismissed. While Judge Chad Sleight agreed with Cole that questioning the defendant without her attorney present was a clear violation of her right to counsel and he was “outraged” by the misconduct, he decided the remedy would be to keep the police officer off the witness stand.

Even without his lead officer, the assistant city attorney went ahead and took the case to trial.

Attorney Katie Kauffman came up with a huge win for her client this week, as she successfully argued he should be spared from going to prison.

Under the terms of what a state Department of Corrections officer described as a “rather unorthodox idea” for punishment that she supported, Kauffman’s client will keep his job.

At the hearing on May 24, a Clark County senior deputy prosecutor asked Superior Court Judge Derek Vanderwood to sentence Kauffman’s client to 30 months in prison.

In Washington state, crimes carry a standard range of confinement. Sentences that go higher or lower than those standard ranges are called “exceptional sentences” and judges need to articulate a reason for going outside the standard range.

Kauffman’s client had pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct in the first degree. The charges originated from a Dropbox tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which sent it to local law enforcement.

While Washington state’s SSOSA (Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative) allows for treatment instead of prison, a key requirement excluded Kauffman’s client from consideration. To receive SSOSA, an offender must have an established relationship with the victim. Since Kauffman’s client looked at photographs of children he doesn’t know, he wasn’t eligible.

Kauffman gave Judge Vanderwood several facts that supported an exceptional sentence below the standard range.

Her client had no prior criminal history and no known contact with law enforcement. He has a full-time job and support from his employer. He supports and cares for his two children including providing their healthcare benefits. The mother of his oldest child and his current girlfriend both support him. He passed a polygraph that indicated he was being truthful when he said he has not had any sexual contact with minors and has no interest. He cooperated with law enforcement and admitted to looking at the photographs.

Kauffman had her client do psychosexual evaluations with two doctors, both of whom said her client was a low risk to reoffend.

Those opinions were shared with the Department of Corrections, which also supported the downward departure from the sentencing range. In a pre-sentence investigation report, a corrections officer noted the defendant was a “young man and father, with a stable career, a supportive family and no criminal record or drug problem.” Kauffman’s proposal of work release “may be a rather unorthodox idea to which Department of Corrections might ordinarily take exception,” but in this case her client “has a history of good follow through, including with his employment, parental responsibilities, and even such simple things as keeping legal-related appointments and court dates. He came clean with investigating officers on these charges, (and) agreed to a polygraph and sexual deviancy assessment.”

Kauffman’s client, the corrections officer wrote, said he accepted the files from another individual to his Dropbox account not knowing what exactly were in the files. “He did eventually look at the files, and realized there were sexually-explicit child images in the material,” the corrections officer wrote. “He described his curiosity being ‘piqued’ and not immediately deleting the files.” He denied independently searching for sexually-explicit child images or having any actual sexual interest in children, she wrote.

One doctor noted that Kauffman’s client, who was 24 when he looked at the photographs, was medicated for ADHD from sixth grade through high school and that may have affected his neurodevelopment.

Vanderwood sentenced Kauffman’s client to one year of work release, which means he’ll be at the Clark County Work Center when he’s not at his job. He was also ordered to receive treatment and register as a sex offender.

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